


no way to go home

by chronology



Category: Final Fantasy Type-0
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25063879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronology/pseuds/chronology
Summary: The world—the world that he had sworn to protect for the Dominion and for Machina, especially for Machina—is burning. As Izana lifts his sword and plunges it into the chest of an imperial soldier, he cries and he thinks, this is not what he joined the army for. He had things he wanted to protect, not destroy.A closer look at Izana.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	no way to go home

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote a while back for a roleplaying app. Izana is one of my favorite FF Type-0 characters and I wanted to sort of imagine his life.
> 
> Title from No Way to Go Home by 316.

When Izana leaves, the sky is blue. He kisses his mother, ruffles Machina’s hair, and tells Rem to take care of herself and his brother while he’s gone. The pack he’s slung over his shoulder bounces against his back as he makes his way next to the peddler and waves his family goodbye.

A traveler’s song leaves the peddler’s lips and Izana finds himself humming along to it. The day is remarkably pristine. The sun is shining but not overly hot, and the fog seems far away for the day. Nature is still yet lively, like a sentient and tangible image. They travel a mile and Izana sees the wild chocobo running freely—he’s almost tempted to run alongside them. In him brims an almost childish fascination for the outer world, but he reasons with himself that it’s natural. All the tales that passing peddlers have told him have only made him curious of what else exists outside of the village.

Now he can finally have it. _Freedom.  
  
  
  
  
_Izana learns that freedom has a price. A month later and all he’s learned about the outside is drowned by the loss of everything else.

Izana returns to ashes. The houses, the buildings, even the stables and the farms are all gone while whatever remains is burnt black. He practically jumps off the wagon, his things dropping to the floor as the peddler’s call of his name grows distant.

He realizes, he thinks and he realizes, he doesn’t remember anyone. His mother, his father—he must’ve had them, right?—are nothing more than tethered social relationships, precious to him only by title. Whatever bodies might have been initially left behind have crumbled and burned. Izana makes his way to the place he remembers his house used to stand; he can’t recall who exactly inhabited it, but he knows that this isn’t what it used to be like. Making his way through the debris, Izana crouches down and digs up a couple of knowing tags, but they’re engraved with names he doesn’t know anymore.

If he had been here. If he had only just been here—

Images come back to him. In his head, he can see pink and black. Machina and Rem are still alive. They exist in his memories, so they still have to be out there somewhere, but now Izana doesn’t even know where to begin looking. Rubrum is large, and he is only one person.

But how had they even escaped? The children they are can’t make it out on their own. Izana clutches at his own head as his knees buckle beneath him. If only he had been here, if he hadn’t left, maybe everyone would still be here, maybe his parents would be alive, maybe his family would still be together. If he hadn’t left.  
  
  
  
  
Time and searching, a lot of searching, leads Izana to Machina. Machina is—reasonably, Izana thinks despite his own misery—distant, but Izana takes what he can. Emotional distance can always be fixed. At least now he knows where Machina is.

All this really is his fault, anyway. If only he hadn’t gone on that trip, if only he had stayed. Maybe they wouldn’t be where they are.

Even if he had been there, what could he have done? He heard it had been the Militesi that had invaded the village before leaving it to flames. He would’ve been another victim of gunfire, not strong enough to fight off soldiers with guns, or even run away fast enough. _A mere child_ , Izana remembers. A child, the same way Machina had been when he pulled Rem along and away from almost certain death.

Time has grown him out of being a child. On him are the awkward limbs of a teenager, awkward and clumsy all at once—not someone fit to protect anyone.

He needs to become that person, so what happened to the village doesn’t happen again. He only has Machina and Rem left. He can’t lose them too and have nothing left. Not even memories.  
  
  
  
  
Machina becomes an Agito Cadet. Four years his junior, and Machina is better than him. Strong, intelligent Machina.

Izana wants to become one too. He’s heard a lot about them, how they’re the strongest fighters in all of the Dominion, and only they have the privilege of attending Akademia.

Suzaku stops him. Izana is too old and his magic has worn out, so there’s no way he can become an Agito Cadet.

Izana joins the army instead.  
  
  
  
  
_This is for the Dominion, for Rem, and for Machina,_ Izana tells himself through the harsh training and mind-numbing tasks assigned to him. _So that another village doesn’t burn down again.  
  
  
  
  
_It's a patrolling shift that has Izana grimacing as he makes his way to the chocobo ranch to prepare Chichiri for the journey. In his imaginations, Izana had pictured himself somehow going through a horde of Militesi soldiers, Suzaku’s magic imbued in his veins as he struck them down one by one. Surely Machina would be proud of him then, for having changed from the useless older brother who hadn’t even been there as the village had died to the courageous legionary who had braved war and successfully saw it through. The reality is far from this glory, and Izana wonders if all he’s ever going to do in his life is hunt coeurls. Machina is probably doing much more important things inside Akademia. That’s the life of an Agito Cadet, after all.

Stepping inside the stable, Izana looks up to see the mantle of an Agito Cadet. When his gaze goes up higher, a little bit of his heart sinks when he realizes that the visitor isn’t Machina, but instead a boy with blond hair. He watches the stranger gaze at the other chocobos for a moment, and smiles to himself.

He learns that the boy’s name is Ace. And that he’s in Class Zero.  
  
  
  
  
_“We’re going out on a mission soon. If I asked you to, would you lend us a hand?”_

_“What are you talking about? But you are an elite cadet! Only the best in the military can work with you. Putting a nobody like me with you is out of the question.”_

_“What if you weren’t? Would you fight at our side?”  
  
  
  
  
_The world—the world that he had sworn to protect for the Dominion and for Machina, especially for Machina—is burning. As Izana lifts his sword and plunges it into the chest of an imperial soldier, he cries and he thinks, this is not what he joined the army for. He had things he wanted to protect, not destroy.

His adrenaline ebbs away until his shoulders cave in, until he lets go of the sword and collapses on the floor. The pain in his abdomen returns, like a blade piercing and twisting at his insides, hot and burning at its core. He lays there, staring up at a sky far too bright for the war around him, until a reminder creeps into the corner of his eye in the form of an armored beak. Izana stares. He stares up at Chichiri’s eyes and can see that they’re as creased with concern as they can be, as much as that quiet cry of hers is. Someone is still with him.

His arm feels like lead, heavy in its own skin, while he lifts it up to pet her muzzle. The metal’s barely under his fingertips when he remembers a promise he hasn’t fulfilled yet.

Ace.

Izana quickly gets up, something he’s learned to do from all of his training sessions. Walking is the difficult part, and he limps the one or two feet it takes to reach Chichiri. Mounting her seems like a monumental task as he clutches at his abdomen. It hurts to even stand the way he does, and he can feel his own blood soaking into his fingers.

“Stay with me,” he breathes as he strokes Chichiri’s feathers with his free hand. “Ace… I’m coming."  
  
  
  
  
He doesn’t know how long he’s been lying on the ground, with the world’s edges merging into one another. The instant he hears the gunshots and Chichiri’s cry, though, the world sharpens with sudden clarity and Izana moves—moves desperately, crawls as fast as his body allows him, until there’s gravel embedded into the skin of his torn palms.

“Chichiri!”

He gets to her body and tries to heal her, but he can’t no matter how hard he tries— Why can’t he— How can he not use magic—

The imperial soldiers are closing in behind him and Izana can picture the barrels of their guns raised to his head. The COMM device is still sitting heavy in his pocket, telling him that he hasn’t kept his promise yet, and he still needs to, but the soldiers are coming closer and He’s not here yet and—

“Ace…” Izana begins to cry with his body shielding Chichiri from the soldiers that are sure to kill her if he leaves. Each sharp inhale leaves something aching in his abdomen, but this is an assignment specifically for him, and he needs to see it through— See something through for once in his life—

“Ace, Ace— _ACE!_ "

The world is suddenly alight. There’s a familiar face to the red cape that appears in front of him, and Izana knows that his mission is finally finished.  
  
  
  
  
There is fire on his right and the crumbs of buildings on his left. He wonders if this is what it would've been like to watch the village in flames.

In the edge of his eyes, he can see the gleam of his glowing tag on the ground, edges stained in blood. His abdomen burns afterward. As the clouds shift, Izana lies back against Chichiri, holding onto his stomach as it bleeds through his fingers. She makes a soft noise before relaxing beneath him and he thanks her with a trembling touch of his hands. The war around him seems distant while he watches the grey skies roll by. The pain that had been enveloping him is somehow slipping into a more comforting numbness, and he thinks of Machina.

Machina, crisp and saturated in his memories, is alive. It’s a comforting thought. Rem, too, is also someone he remembers, and he’s glad she’s okay, wherever she is.

It hits him after that. The memories, the knowing tag a foot away—all of these won’t matter when he dies. And he’s dying, even if it doesn’t hurt anymore. He’s bleeding and can’t heal himself, he can hear the girl with Ace telling him to leave, there’s nothing that can be done, _that person is going to die_ , his heart is leaping upward, nobody will remember him, nobody, not Rem, not even Machina—

“I don’t—” he chokes on whatever sobbing is crawling up his throat through all the copper he’s tasting, “—don’t want to—”

_I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die, not like this, I don’t want to die like this_

_I don’t want to die, it’s too early, I haven’t done anything yet, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die_

_I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die_

_I don’t want to die_

_I don’t want_


End file.
